National Travel Survey 2010

Releases

Summary

This publication presents statistics on personal travel in Great Britain during 2010. It contains the latest results and trends on how, why, when and where people travel as well as factors which affect personal travel such as car availability, driving licence holding and access to key services.

Update

On 6 October 2011 a set of tables showing NTS results by region, country and area type were published. These tables all have the table name format of nts99xx.

It is necessary to combine survey year data together when producing NTS results for geographic areas below that of Great Britain due to small sample sizes.

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Key points

There has been a steady falling trend in trip rates since 1995/97. Average distance travelled per person per year remained relatively stable until 2007, but has declined slightly over the last three years.
In 2010, there was an average of 960 trips per person per year – the lowest level since the mid-1970s. There were 1,061 stages, 6,726 miles travelled, and an average trip length of 7.0 miles.
Between 1995/97 and 2010, overall trips rates fell by 12%. Trips by private modes of transport fell by 14% while public transport modes increased by 8%. Walking trips saw the largest decrease.
Most of the decline in overall trips rates between 1995/97 and 2010 can be accounted for by a fall in shopping and visiting friends.
In 2010, 80% of males and 66% of females held a full car driving licence. While the proportion of males holding a licence remained fairly stable since the early 1990’s, the proportion of females with a licence continued to increase.
Trips by car (as a driver or passenger) accounted for 64% of all trips made and 78% of distance travelled in 2010.
On average, females make more trips than males, but males travel much further each year.
Concessionary travel pass take-up in 2010 was 78% of those eligible.
Average annual car mileage was estimated to be 8,430 miles in 2010.

Browse all statistical tables related to this series

National Travel Survey (NTS) – all statistical tables

Technical information

Information on the National Travel Survey, including the Technical Report, standard error estimates for 2009, survey materials (questionnaire, travel diaries and fuel card), the UKSA assessment report and the pre-release access list are available at: